Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Erwin, friend to us both from Melch's days at Brown, is getting married and was having a bachelor party. Erwin is no ordinary bachelor and this was no ordinary bachelor party.

Sure, it happened in Vegas, but there were more gourmet restaurants and fewer strippers than usual. There was also one more Delorean than usual.

Don't see that every day

There was, I suppose, just about as much Bellagio fountain as usual, so there's that.

Some epic Spanish tapas was on the menu when we arrived on Friday. We thought that the giant paella dish meant that there'd be a lot of paella, but then we figured that it was really thin in the pan so it wouldn't be that much. Then they brought it out in serving dishes and it turned out that we had been right in the first place: it was a LOT of paella. Beyond that, there were more meats than we have English words for (but not more than there were Spanish words for).

We were staying at Treasure Island, which has a really campy Sirens show every evening. Really campy.

The show is like a 20 minute long that's what she said joke, except it's mostly not joking.

Top floor!

The following day we were finally ready to eat again after tapas by about brunchtime. I have no idea when we started or when we finished, but I do know that all-you-can-drink champagne is a wonderful thing. At first we were trying to compete on who could down the most mimosas. I proposed different rules. At the end of the meal, we'd ask each person how many they'd had. If they had any idea, they'd lose. We had a lot of winners.

I think it was a point of pride for Kurt that the waiter finally tired of making us mimosas and just brought us two bottles of the bubbly and some OJ.

Melch and I briefly took our leave for the group so that I could watch my rugby team play the Las Vegas Irish side. By chance their away game happened to be on the same weekend in the same city. The Grunions fought valiantly but the injury-depleted side was playing one man down and that was just too much.

We returned to the strip to join the group for some Treasure Island pool magaritas. We might have creeped out made friends with some lovely females. What happens in the champagne-addled pool-goers mind stays in the champagne-addled pool-goers mind.

By late evening our appetites had finally recovered from our morning excesses and it was off to the Venetian for Carnevino, Mario Batali's swank steak house. The service was good, the food was good, the knives looked cool and the bill was high. All was as expected.

Classy

Yup.

The following morning we found a cool classic parked next to me in the TI lot.

My friend owns a Z not too dissimilar from this one

Breakfast on our final day was Bouchon at the Venetian. It was fat- and carb-heavy in the best possible way. Pastries, French Toast with sugar on its sugar, butter for your bread and even duck-fat butter. It's rumored that you can gain 0.5 pounds just by entering the room.

Nice view at Bouchon

We enjoyed as troll around the Wynn in order to walk off the meal and then headed back to the Venetian to catch the Master's at a sports book (several of our party were avid golfers).

Even though it wasn't a normal bachelor party, it contained the proper Vegas elements: a deficit of sleep and an excess of pretty much everything else. All was as it should be.